Poetry and Modes of Humor

While poetry has often been conceived of as a largely serious genre, it has multiple affinities with comedy. This chapter begins by briefly surveying our standard theories of humor: superiority, incongruity, relief. It then sets out the comic affordances of poetic form: form – whether strict rhyme, the freest of free verse, or something in between – can generate and reinforce comic effects. Taking its examples primarily from twentieth- and twenty-first century work, the chapter then defines three modes of humor: complaint, observation, and play. These interlocking modes demonstrate the range and complexity of humor in modern American poetry – and the conceptual instability that both poetry and humor share.